Irving police spokesman John Argumaniz said the accident happened about 2:20 a.m. Saturday in the Dallas suburb. Brent was speeding when the vehicle hit a curb and flipped at least once, Argumaniz said.

Argumaniz said the 25-year-old Brown -- also Brent's teammate at the University of Illinois for three seasons -- was found unresponsive at the scene and pronounced dead at a hospital.

The police spokesman said officers conducted a field sobriety test on Brent and arrested him. The charge was upgraded after Brown was pronounced dead. . . .

It turns out that the bullet resistant vest used by the Aurora movie theater shooter wasn't so bullet resistant

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has this sales receipt for the vest used by James Holmes. If you go to Tactical Gear, you will see that while this is an "assault vest," it is hardly bullet resistant. The vest is apparently an "assault vest" because it has pockets to hold multiple magazines. Here is the description provided of the product (click on the picture to enlarge). Nylon isn't going to provide much protection against bullets.

Tactical Gear does sell bullet resistant vests, but they are much more expensive and are in the $500 to $620 range. Of course, even if it had been a bullet resistant vest, it is still possible for bullets to penetrate, and in any case hits on the vest would have likely knocked him down and stopped the attack.

Note that in July the New York Times mentioned this Blackhawk Urban Assault Vest, but apparently they had no idea what they had.

Disgruntled union workers put their fight against Cablevision over the fight against cancer at a Times Square protest last night.About 50 members of the Communications Workers of America Local 1109 disrupted a benefit for cancer research at the Hard Rock Cafe, carrying signs and blaring music as attendees streamed in.Cablevision CEO James Dolan, whose rock band performed at the event, told The Post that the workers’ actions are “despicable.”“They think being disruptive for their personal gain is more important than beating pancreatic cancer,” he said. “Their values are twisted. I’m surprised at the depth of their lowness. Everyone who deals with them should take note. It’s shameful.”The benefit was expected to raise $1.75 million for the Lustgarten Foundation, which funds pancreatic-cancer research. . . .

I didn't dismiss Costas' comments because they were emotional. The relevant part of the sentence where I made this reference read like this: "Bob Costas’ emotional reaction to the deaths of Belcher and Perkins is understandable . . . ." My problem wasn't that he was emotional, it was that what he said was factually wrong.

Domestic, or intimate-partner violence, is a problem that goes well beyond guns. Some forty per cent of women who are murdered in America are killed by men with whom they are or were in relationships (the most dangerous moment is when she tries to leave). . . .

The facts also disprove Costas' subsequent allegation that legally owned guns are greatly to blame for crime among minorities. Guns are used in inner city gang crimes, certainly, but they are almost all illegally acquired and possessed by their users.

Indeed, gun crime rates are highest in the cities where legal gun possession is most strongly discouraged -- New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., chief among them.

But where guns are widely and legally possessed, crime rates fall. And studies have shown more than a million crimes are halted or prevented by legally owned firearms each year. Just the display of a weapon discourages most offenders, who look for easier targets to victimize.

Therefore, gun crimes most often take place in places where criminals know they have a high probability of being the only person on the scene who is armed.

Colorado and Virginia both permit carrying firearms, but the Aurora movie theater and the Virginia Tech campus where two of the nation's most famous recent mass killings took place both "banned" guns on their property. . . .

Domestic, or intimate-partner violence, is a problem that goes well beyond guns. Some forty per cent of women who are murdered in America are killed by men with whom they are or were in relationships (the most dangerous moment is when she tries to leave). . . .

The facts also disprove Costas' subsequent allegation that legally owned guns are greatly to blame for crime among minorities. Guns are used in inner city gang crimes, certainly, but they are almost all illegally acquired and possessed by their users.

Indeed, gun crime rates are highest in the cities where legal gun possession is most strongly discouraged -- New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., chief among them.

But where guns are widely and legally possessed, crime rates fall. And studies have shown more than a million crimes are halted or prevented by legally owned firearms each year. Just the display of a weapon discourages most offenders, who look for easier targets to victimize.

Therefore, gun crimes most often take place in places where criminals know they have a high probability of being the only person on the scene who is armed.

Colorado and Virginia both permit carrying firearms, but the Aurora movie theater and the Virginia Tech campus where two of the nation's most famous recent mass killings took place both "banned" guns on their property. . . .

12/07/2012

Anti-gun State Senator in Illinois arrested for unregistered handgun

If this were a Republican who believed people had the right to self defense with guns, I suspect that this story would have gotten more attention.

State Sen. Donne Trotter was packing an illegal handgun in his carry-on when he got pinched at an O’Hare Airport checkpoint, prosecutors said at a Thursday bond hearing.

Trotter’s bail was set at $25,000 on felony charges that he tried to board a plane with an unloaded .25-caliber Beretta. He also allegedly carried an ammunition clip loaded with bullets. . . .

Prosecutors said in court that Trotter told Transportation Security Administration agents he is employed by Allpoints Security and Detective Inc., where he said he had worked the night shift on Tuesday. Trotter said he forgot to take his gun out of his garment bag.

Trotter told authorities the gun was legally registered in Chicago, but a search of handgun records found that it was not, prosecutors said. . . .

Police said an 49-year-old Appleton man was driving into town from the west, when his SUV passed a van – and the van started ramming the SUV from behind. The Appleton man called 911, and a dispatcher told him to wait in a parking lot for an officer.

In the meantime, the attackers followed the man – and police said the couple got out and started beating him and stabbing him with their vehicle keys. The man pulled his concealed gun, and the two backed off. . . . .

The SUV driver had a legal state concealed carry permit, and police say he will not be criminally charged.

"There's never a reason to hit a woman, touch a woman, or obviously kill a woman," Barkley tells USA TODAY Sports.

"I hope people don't (overemphasize) the gun situation. I'm very sensitive to domestic violence because I have a daughter (23-year-old Christiana), and that's just one thing that I cannot accept in any shape or form whatsoever. It's just a crazy situation.

"I don't get into the gun stuff. Some guys have guns who go hunting. Where do we stop (the gun control) at? I'm not a hunter, but we can't say people can't have guns. ... Let's not make this thing about guns. Let's make this about mistreating women. That's unacceptable." . . .

Obama wants to go over "Fiscal Cliff"?

It sure looks like Obama wants to go over the fiscal cliff. Apparently he just thinks that the Republicans will get blamed so he has no intent on really negotiating. During the campaign he asked for $800 billion in tax increases. Republicans offered him that and now he wants $1.6 trillion. From The Hill newspaper:

“This isn’t a progress report, because there’s no progress to report,” Boehner said in a brief press conference at the Capitol. He said the White House had “wasted another week” by not responding to House Republicans. . . . .

Unfortunately, Costas’ statements were filled with errors on topics ranging from "body armor" to “automatic weapons” to the gun laws in Colorado to the views of police to the behavior of permit holders.

During appearances on both shows Costas worried about the “Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality” of America’s 8 million concealed handgun permit holders.

Regarding the Aurora, Colorado shooting he attacked: “people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed at the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nut job in body armor and military style artillery.” But Costas never asked why the killer picked the Cinemark’s Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20th to commit mass murder. . . .

The first thing, just to get it out of the way, he was on for less than a minute. And, almost all of the time, he spent quoting a very fine columnist out in Kansas City named Jason Whitlock.

But as far as Bob himself is concerned, I spoke to him today at length, and he told me that --

-- he, in no way, wants -- and if he could even snap his fingers and make it happen, he wouldn't repeal the Second Amendment because of abuses that some people commit with guns, in any more than he would repeal the First Amendment because some people say stupid things and hurtful things.

So, that's not what it's about. He told me he has no problem with people who have guns to protect their homes or to go hunting. He said that he thinks there should be reasonable gun control so that people don't have -- can't go online and build an arsenal of guns and put it in their basement. . . .

But the most important thing he told me, Bill, is that he wasn't by and large talking about gun laws. . . . .

Unfortunately, soon after Bernie was defending Costas to Fox viewers as saying that Costas "wasn't by and large talking about gun laws," Costas was on MSNBC seeming to say the opposite.

"It demonstrates itself in the wild west, Dirty Harry mentality. People who actually believe that if a number of people were armed at the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nut job in body armor and military style artillery. In fact, almost every police man in the country would tell you that would have only increased the tragedy and added to the carnage. But it also plays itself out, and Jason Whitlock had some insight into this, it plays itself out in the inner cities where teenage kids are somehow armed to the hilt."

Here are two pieces that are relevant to Costas' claims (here and here).

The point is that blacks in these high crime areas need protection. Drug gangs are a real problem. Police are also the most important factor protecting people, but they can't be there all the time. Poor blacks in the inner city benefit more than others from having a chance to defend themselves.Costas had this interview on Monday available here.

Right-to-work and job growth

Info on right-to-work states is available here. Red State has put together job growth in states available here. They could have been more complete showing the change for all states and not just 28. Indiana just became a RTW state.

"We will continue to look at ways of keeping our cities safe and making sure that we do address the concerns around domestic violence that happen right across the country, in rural as well as urban areas in which, unfortunately, guns do play a role."

"But there are better ways of keeping us safe than that registry which is, has been removed," Trudeau said.

The Liberal leadership hopeful made the comments after he was asked for his view on the now-defunct long-gun registry.

"I grew up with long guns, rifles and shotguns," explained the son of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

"Yes, the RCMP guarding me had handguns and I got to play with them every now and then," said Trudeau, quickly adding that the RCMP was "very responsible" around him and his siblings. . . .

Trudeau voted against the abolition of the federal long-gun registry. . . .

“With the senseless tragedy in Kansas City this weekend, once again, gun violence finds its way onto our nation’s front pages; and once again we hear the same stale arguments from both sides of the political spectrum,” DeGette told The Hill in an email. “It’s clear these old arguments are doing nothing to protect our families and our society, so I urge our nation to come together and change the conversation.” . . .

A very thorough review of my book Freedomnomics

An economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ronald Johnson, has written a very thorough review of my book Freedomnomics available here. The price of the book is much, much lower than he indicates (!), but, besides that, it is a very nice review.

12/03/2012

How much different would the entire Zimmerman/Martin debate have been if this photo had been released soon after the event?

Would it have hurt the police to release this photo soon after the attack? Why has the prosecutor been dragging her feet to release this color picture? I guess that we all know the answer. Fox News as the story available here.

Guns can make it easier to kill people, but that isn’t relevant here. Even if no weapon existed, the strength differential is so large that Belcher could have easily killed Perkins in any number of ways. The same is true, sadly, about suicide. There are so many ways that Belcher could have killed himself, including crashing his car at a high rate of speed into a wall or even another car as he drove to Arrowhead Stadium.

Unfortunately, pointing to two deaths here does nothing to advance the case for gun control. Costas’ rant falls under the category of if gun control could save just one life it would be worth it. The argument makes as much sense as saying we shouldn’t have gun control if guns can save one life.

The question is the net effect of guns, and what Costas ignores is that guns save a lot more lives than they cost each year. And that's not even mentioning the roughly 2 million times a year that people use guns defensively.

Whether people like Costas like it or not the facts speak for themselves . . .

12/02/2012

Would the Obama administration reclassify semi-automatic guns as machine guns?

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
The Obama administration apparently might claim that it is easy to convert semi-automatic guns into automatic ones. Of course, as John Snyder points out here, that is false. It will be interesting to see if what Snyder is claiming turns out to be true. One other comment is that I don't approve of Snyder's language. I think that he could have said things quite differently and been more effective.

What if Republicans gave the Democrats what they wanted?

Democrat's plans would increase unemployment and reduce growth rates. For Republicans opposing the Democrat's proposals help the Democrats because the economy is better than it otherwise would have been. At the same time, Democrats beat up on Republicans for being mean.

Republicans are cool to a White House proposal that federal unemployment benefits be extended for another year.
Extending the benefits would cost $30 billion and was included in the first deficit-reduction proposal that President Obama sent to GOP leaders this week.
With talks to avoid the “fiscal cliff” seemingly at a standstill, Republicans are suggesting that the cost of extending the jobless benefits program could prove problematic.
"After spending $215 billion and adding $180 billion to the debt, more spending on federal unemployment benefits, above and beyond what the states already spend, would have to be carefully considered during fiscal cliff talks," said a House GOP aide. . . .